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"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."

Govenor Bentley begs, borrows or steals. -OR- What’s it like living in Alabama? Ever been continuously anally gang-raped?

Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Not only does Governor Bentley send another man out to do his work, but he steadfastly refuses to do the right thing.

And the Huntsville Times REFUSES to cover Dr. Don Williamson’s stumping-for-the-governor’s “Let me borrow-nearly-a-half-BILLION-dollars-without-a-repayment-plan” appearance at City Hall.

Remember: Whatever you do,

• DO NOT increase tax rates on the wealthiest Alabamians, who already pay a lower rate than the impoverished – who also pay the 3d highest tax rate in the USA (why, even former Republican Governor Bob Riley called for tax change saying, “It is immoral to charge somebody making $5,000 an income tax.”);

• DO NOT increase property tax rates on corporate timber landowners who pay a lower rate than homeowners – who already pay 66% less than the national average;

• DO NOT increase severance tax rates on big oil & gas companies who are extracting those natural resources from under Alabama soil; and for goodness sake, whatever you do,

• DO NOT stop earmarking 9 out of every $10 of state tax revenue. God – and Governing Magazine – knows that our 50th place rank among our nation’s 50 states for fiscal management is as best as the whole state of retards can do.

Dr. Don Williamson, State Health Officer with the Alabama Department of Public Health, announces an emergency ruling that two dangerous chemicals marketed as ‘bath salts’ are being added to the Alabama Controlled Substances List during a press conference in Montgomery, Ala., on Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2011. (Montgomery Advertiser, Lloyd Gallman) / Advertiser file

Alabama’s chief public health official said Medicaid will be in deep trouble if voters do not approve a Sept. 18 referendum to take more than $437 million from a state trust fund and use it to prevent huge cuts in spending on state programs for three years.

The constitutional amendment, if approved by voters, would take $145.8 million a year for three years out of the Alabama Trust Fund to help balance the budget during a time when tax collections are expected to see little growth.

Some critics say the Alabama Trust Fund was initially set up more than 30 years ago to prevent state officials from raiding oil and gas revenue every time the state has a funding crisis.

State Health Officer Don Williamson, who is temporarily overseeing funding for Alabama’s health care program for the poor, said without receiving money from the trust fund the Medicaid program would be $100 million in the red.

He said this could jeopardize programs that provide medicine for poor patients, reduce payments for doctors who treat Medicaid patients, send more poor patients to emergency rooms and eliminate optional Medicaid programs such as providing life-saving dialysis treatment.

“These are life-threatening choices,” Williamson said.

Williamson told The Associated Press that the funding crisis is real and could have a profound effect on health care for Alabama residents, particularly children and the poor.

He said failing to fund Medicaid at an appropriate level would affect more than just Medicaid patients. He said some hospitals would face shutting down because they depend on Medicaid money.

Gov. Robert Bentley, a Republican, said he’s optimistic the referendum will pass “despite all of the doom and gloom talk.”

He said the Medicaid funding problem is just another part of difficult financial time for state government.”

“It’s the most difficult time since the Great Depression,” the governor said. “I’m going to trust that it will pass, but if it doesn’t pass, we’ll get through this.”

Bentley said he’s asked his department heads to look for ways to find additional revenue.

Opponents said the crisis can be solved without raiding the state’s savings.

“We’re going to offer a solution. We’re going to come up with it,” House Minority Leader Craig Ford of Gadsden said.

He said Democrats still were crafting a solution and would announce it several days after the Sept. 18 vote if the referendum is defeated.

Ford voted for the proposed constitutional amendment in the House in May because he said he always supports letting the people vote on issues. But he said he feels it’s a temporary fix to get the Republican majority past the next legislative elections in 2014.

“Instead of doing the job they were elected to do, the Republicans in the Alabama Legislature passed the buck to the voters with this constitutional amendment,” he said.

Williamson said part of the problem is that Medicaid is a contract with the federal government, and if the state doesn’t provide the services it has agreed to provide, it risks losing its federal funding.

He said benefits in Alabama already have been stripped down as far as possible without violating the state’s contract with the federal government.

He said it’s not just rural hospitals or charity hospitals that would be harmed by a loss of Medicaid funding.

“Sixty-four percent of the funding for Children’s Hospital comes from Medicaid,” Williamson said, referring to the highly respected Birmingham hospital that has treated youngsters from around the world.

An opponent of the referendum, Greenville businessman and former Republican candidate for governor Tim James, said the fund was set up by his father, former Gov. Fob James, to give the state a permanent savings account,

“Every time we get into a tight place we go into that cookie jar. If we do that every time, we aren’t going to have any cookies left,” James said.

James said if the vote passes he expects another Medicaid funding crisis in a year or two.

He said there have been other Medicaid funding crises and they are always solved by one-time money or what James called “BandAids.”

He said state government eventually will be forced to find a permanent solution.